Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2009-253773 describes a prior art example of a touch type input device. The touch type input device detects when a touchpad is touched (swiped) to select an icon shown on a display.
For example, referring to FIG. 8, icons 101a to 101f are shown on a display 100. In FIG. 8, the cross in the display 100 shows operational coordinates 105 corresponding to a location in a touchpad where the touchpad is touched. The swiping of the touchpad moves the operational coordinates 105 along the display 100. This allows for the selection of the icons 101a to 101f in correspondence with where the operational coordinates 105 are moved.
The operational coordinates 105 moved by the swiping stops at where the finger is separated from the touchpad. Thus, to select an icon arranged next to where the operational coordinates 105 were located when the swiping was stopped, the touchpad is swiped again from the stopped position. In this case, the swiping distance differs in accordance with where the operational coordinates 105 were located when the swiping was stopped. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 8, to switch the selected icon from icon 101a to icon 101f, the touchpad is swiped by distance D1 when the coordinates 105 are located at position P1. When the operational coordinates 105 are located at position P2, the touchpad is swiped by distance D2, which is longer than distance D1. When the operational coordinates 105 are located at position P3, the touchpad is swiped by distance D3, which is longer than distance D2. In this manner, such difference in the distance swiped to switch the selected icon may be uncomfortable to a user.